All hearts day

Is the Swedish name for Valentine's. We're celebrating pretty seriously, it's our first Valentine's. I've never really celebrated Valentine's before, not properly.

I've been preparing all week and today it culminated in a super intense full day of crafting, wrapping gifts and... well, preparing. I don't want to give anything away.

I finally got an appointment for getting my tooth taken care of. It's ages away because I need anaesthesia and the special dentist only has the anaesthetologist (?) come in every hundred years or so.

And I've seen a psychologist, and I'm seeing her again next week, and then she's going to decide what kind of treatment I'm getting and putting me on a waiting list for that specific type of treatment. It can take six months, or more. But still, a step inthe right direction.

Now I'm going to bed because like ten or eleven hours of crafting and prepping has pretty much worn me out.

Heavy days

What is it that makes certain days so much harder to get through? Could it be something as trivial as a bad tooth? Is it the antibiotics? Or the infection? The fight inside my body?

Or is it finishing The Shepherds Crown? Because now it really feels like Terry Pratchett is dead. Like The Discworld is dead. Like the portal to that place is gone and lost forever. And that place is one of my favourites. I love his last ten or so books. I like all of them but they did get better and better.

My feckin tooth. Let me tell you about it. In may, while in England, I got a crazy infection in my jaw. I went to a doctor who gave me antibiotics and told me to see a dentist as soon as I got back. I did, they immediately pulled out a wisdom tooth and gave me more antibiotics. They also told me I needed a root canal. However since I was moving to Denmark social services didn't want to pay for it.

So I moved to Denmark. I tried to figure out if I could still get the root canal in Sweden - if I paid for it myself - but I never managed to find out.

So the problem was that "me paying for it myself" meant that Chris pays. I knew that I had to find a dentist, my tooth was hurting more and more, I couldn't eat or drink anything colder than room temperature but I kept putting it off. I knew it was going to cost.

Finally I called the closest dentist. Just around the corner. I got an appointment and went in for a consultation and x ray. Yes, I needed a root canal. It would probably take a couple of go's. Fine. I came in for the first step of the root canal last week, got an injection of anaesthetics (the thing that makes you numb, not the thing that makes you fall asleep). They started to drill. I screamed. It was horrible. More injections. More drilling. More mind shattering pain. I was crying and apologising. They told me not to worry, we would try again on Monday.

On Monday morning I took a diazepam and a citodon. I went in, had 5 injections of anaesthetics (one in my jaw and the rest around the tooth) and then got to wait more than 30 minutes for them to kick in properly. Half my face was completely numb but, of course, the second that drill touched my tooth it felt like an axe hit my lower jaw. I was crying again. They stopped, because there was nothing more to do.

They told me to call my doctor to see if there was any way to figure out what was going on with my anaesthetic receptors, or something (the diazepam had me pretty lost at this point). I called my doctor and they said they could not help me at all (they literally said "this is not our problem" and I said "that is not helpful at all" and hung up). I called my dentist again and they called my doctor and then my doctors office called me and told me to come in an hour later. I slept for 40 minutes and then went to see my doctor, who talked to an anaesthetic...ologist? She told me that there was no way to find out why the anaesthetics didn't work (they had worked before, I have several teeth that have "mendings" in them) but they were confident that it would be possible to put me under (the only other time I've been under anaesthesia - the sleep kind, not the numb kind - was when I was 12 and had to pull out a tooth that hade grown out in the roof of my mouth, super freaky. The thing was that I got a double adult dose and it still took me hours to fall asleep). A lot has happened in medical science during the last 20 years, according to my doctor.

So. I'm sure my doctor told me some more stuff but I was too woozy to understand much. I went back home.

On Tuesday I didn't call anyone. In the evening I realized that I probably should have, but I wasn't sure who.

On Wednesday I called my dentist. They said that they can't do anaesthetics (the sleep kind) so I had to contact a specialist-dentist. I tried to process that information but felt confused and had no idea how to find a specialist. A while later my doctor called me (maybe she's a bit psychic?) and told me where to call and what to say. Today I called that specialist and got an appointment for a consultation for Monday. So we'll see what happens after that.

Until then I'm still in pain and my half-drilled tooth is not making me happy at all. My face is still swollen and everything feels completely horrible.

BUT! I have gotten a time at the psychiatry!

WHAT UP MY WITCHES

Okay so after another day of not taking my happy pills I feel even more calm and happy. My thoughts are settling in my head and I finished the sky bit of my mural and did laundry and stuff. All good.

The last few days I have been researching "no poo", the practice of washing hair without shampoo, since shampoo is actually pretty harmful to your hair. If anyone can remember that far back I used to wash my hair with only conditioner for a year or so. I stopped about two years ago because I wanted to use styling products and stuff but I almost never do anyways. So intense research has been underway! I'm really exited about it, since I get really exited about stuff in general.

At the moment I'm experimenting a lot. So my hair looks like.. I don't know, troll hair. Zero shine and stuff but really structured? And it smells faintly of chocolate. So that's nice. The interesting thing here is that the internet is full of people who have no idea what they are talking about. I mean look at this. I've seen this tip about bleaching your teeth at home with hydrogen peroxide loads of times. Like... No. Dude. "Just keep it in your mouth for 20 minutes" - that's corrosive chemicals that you're mixing together and putting in your mouth. Your mouth. Just... No.

I'm trying to go by "if I can't eat it I don't want to put it on my body". I know it sounds a bit dirty hippie, but, well, okay. I might be. I'd rather be smelly (chocolate smelly! It feels okay!) than fucking eating hydrogen peroxide. I know those are two extremes but whatever. Shampoo is a really new invention, people have always had hair. I washed it with coffee grounds and baking soda yesterday but that might not be a great idea since on a different page the same mix is used to remove hair. So maybe not that. I also put a lot of lemon juice in it, which was a popular thing for girls to do when I was in eighth grade because they wanted to bleach it but they also made it really brittle, so that might not be super clever either, even tho it might? I'm not sure yet. I think the hair mask of coconut oil and honey that I put in my hair before "washing" it probably protected it a bit. Also it didn't really wash out. Heehee. After arriving at really kind of oily but still clean-feeling and completely odorless hair I wanted to go out, so I put some more baking soda in it, mixed with arrow root and cocoa powder and some cinnamon. I reached the current state of big, matte, curly, fluffy troll hair. I think I'll leave it until some kind of mix of corn starch, arrow root and cocoa powder stops feeling helpful (maybe within... I don't know, a few days, a week?) before subjecting it to more experiments. (I seldom wash my hair more than once a week, even with shampoo.) I'll keep you posted, whether you want me to or not. I'm also going to make my own deodorant! Ever more dirty hippie-warning!

Don't distrust, I still love science. I still own zero cats. I still don't love lentils. But it's a slippery slope, and being an artsy, slightly "eccentric" (if that's possible for poor people to be even), crafty woman over 30 it's easy to go all the way and just start wearing all linen and not eating pizza and maybe taking a pottery class. I already spin yarn and paint murals, so I mean this could just be a question of "when" rather than "if".

And my extreme distrust in doctors probably doesn't help... Welp, tomorrow is shrink day! Better get some sleep so that I can stride in there like the radiant lunatic we all know that I am, full of energy to change my behavior through understanding it! YES I also have zero trust in cbt. As mentioned. Vigorously.

I understand my behavior and I can change it at will. I would prefer to solve my problems. But we'll see. Tomorrow is the first actual treatment meeting. I wonder what he will say about me deciding against chemical warfare on my brain? (And also my body I guess! Altho I really don't give a fuck about my shrink's opinion on my hair.)

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded

Well. It's friday and I'm seriously getting a flu or something. Yesterday we had dinner at Hannah and Ida's new place, and we watched Coach Carter because Ida wanted to see the fit boys with no shirts. It was quite amusing. We also had a absolutely fabulous chocolate cake, made by me, Sara and Amalie.

Not so very amusing is the fact that I can hardly open my mouth from the pain in my left jaw. Tomorrow Sweeny Todd opens. We were supposed to see Kite Runner tonight but it's on to early. So saturday or sunday we will see either Sweeny Todd or Kite Runner. Life is interesting, huh?

Also looking forward to antoher saturday of Buffy and lemsip.

The week has been quick and fun as usual. Ida had a minor fit yesterday about how happy I am, and how I can manage to stay so positive. She laughed so she almost cried when I told her the secret; seven or eight years of therapy.

I'm extremely tired and I just want to get well.

Looking forward to having a visitor soon... Looking forward to it very much.